The Black Book of Cyrenaica

Libya, 1805: A makeshift army of Arabs, Greeks, Egyptians, and U.S. Marines, “all mixed riotously together,” sets off across North Africa to rescue three hundred American sailors held hostage by the vicious and unpredictable King of Tripoli. The expedition is soon beset by a series of brutal and mysterious murders—at first seemingly random, but then becoming more purposeful and troubling.

A young New Englander named Lemuel Sweet chronicles the hardships he and his companions endure on their march west across the sands of the Sahara. Looming ahead of them is the threat of combat in a foreign land. But worse is the creeping suspicion Sweet feels that one of the men leading the expedition is not what he pretends to be, and that ancient and arcane forces are at work that could mean death for him and his fellow marines before a single shot is fired. Death…or worse.